The job market in southeastern Connecticut is growing.
In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Norwich-New London region has the fastest growing job market in the state and the second fastest across New England.
Lawmakers say fueling this growth is the Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative. The federally funded program launched in 2016 and has helped more than 3,400 people get a job in manufacturing across southeastern Connecticut.
"So, there's ten different trades, some of the biggest ones are welding and machining, pipe fitting and ship fitting," Michael Nogelo said.
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Nogelo is the president and CEO of the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board, which coordinates this program.
"Depending on the trade, they run from five weeks to 10 weeks, they are intensive. So really, 30 hours a week of training," Nogelo said.
Kamron Tefft went through this program in 2021, just two weeks after he graduated high school, and quickly began a career as a ship fitter at Electric Boat in Groton.
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"We get handed a print every day, we have to read that and figure out where we got to pull our measurements from," Tefft said.
Last year, nearly 1,000 students graduated from the program and many got jobs at Electric Boat.
"I believe we're going to most likely exceed 1,100 students this year and our program year runs from July 1 to June 30th," Nogelo said.
Earlier this month, Representative Joe Courtney helped pass bipartisan legislation that would expand and make further investments in training programs - an effort to help fill the nearly nine million job openings across the country right now.
"This bill is going to really allow the job training programs to connect with the employment demand that's out there," Courtney said.
